Thistle and darnel and dock grew there,
   And  a bush, in the corner, of may,
On the orchard wall I used to sprawl,
   In the blazing heat of the day;
Half asleep and half awake,
   While the birds went twittering by,
And nobody there my line to share
   But Nicholas Nye.
Nicholas Nye was lean and grey,
   Lame of a leg and old,
More than a score of donkey's years
   He had seen since he was foaled;
He munched the thistles, purple and spiked,
   Would sometimes stoop and sigh,
And turn his head, as if he said,
   'Poor Nicholas Nye!"

~ Walter De La Mare,  Nicholas Nye (April 25, 1873 - June 22, 1956) English poet, novelist.

"A poor book that furnishes no quotations is, me judice, no book ~ it is a plaything."

~ Thomas Love Peacock (1785 - 1866) Engish poet, novelist.

 

 

 

"Mirror, mirror, on the car. . ."

While researching his family tree, author David J. Forsyth vowed to someday record his own story for his descendants.  Dafydd is that story.  Growing up in rural Ontario in the forties and fifties, David describes the crystal radio kit that his brother received as a birthday gift, the stone boat that his father used to clear stones from the fields and the fishing trips to beneath the high-level bridge in Hamilton.  With all his recalled incidents, he concedes that "recollections can never quite capture the excitement of youth."

Join us today ~ 1:00 p.m.

 

We welcome David today in The Neat L'l Bookshop ~ reading and discussing his book.* 1:00 p.m.  Join us.

* Dafydd, 2012. Fifth Concession Publishing, Printed by Carruthers Printing Inc., Smithville.  Bound by Van Huizes Bookbinding & Finishing Ltd., St. Catharines.

[Check out the May issue of The Free Press, Serving Haldimand Communities.  An excellent article on the author.]

Back to Country ~



Dandelion Wine

Golden Green ~

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

Thank you Laurie Miller for these kind comments:

"The delicate greens in those pictures [the sand mill] ....remind me it's that shortest season of the year when 'Nature's first green is gold.'  Robert Frost is right.  The first green of new leaves in spring *is* gold;  I see it in those pictures.  And the leaf buds, as they break, *do* look like flowers.  But only for 'an hour.' "

Laurie, through your familiarity with poetry, you raise our awareness of nature's "first green." Thank you.